The office products retailer is aiming to cut half a billion dollars in costs.
Tech Times reported on Staples’ plans to close over 225 stores by the end of 2015, in an effort to cut $500 million (€360.4 million) in costs, and though a number of layoffs was “not noted”, the company has commented that it will be “optimising” its workforce to save money.
Other areas in which the company is aiming to save money include its supply chain, marketing, IT hardware, customer service and non-product related costs, with impacts from these changes expected to be seen later this year. The company closed 42 stores in North America last year and downsized 40 other shops as well, with the total after the 225 closures around 1,620 stores.
One of the catalysts for this development is said by Tech Times to be the “increased competition” created by the merger of Office Depot and OfficeMax in the USA, with over one million square feet of retail store space “eliminated” throughout 2013 as a consequence of the cost-cutting.
The company did release a list of positives for 2013, including “accelerated growth” on its website increasing sales by 10 percent in the final quarter of the year, as well as over 500,000 products sold on the site compared to 100,000 at the start of 2013. However, it also noted it had “aggressively reduced costs” as well “eliminate[ing] approximately $200 million (€144.1 million) of gross costs to fund reinvention growth priorities”.